Program Notes Chicago Humanities Festival 2009
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Chicago Humanities Festival 2009 Laughter Guerrilla Girls Thursday–Saturday, Marga Gomez November 10–14, 2009 Don Byron Photo by Cori Wells Braun mcachicago.org Chicago Humanities Festival 2009 Welcome Laughter Titles will be announced on stage from the following The Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF) Have you been on the CHF website lately? song list: and the MCA, Chicago, welcome you to the Newly launched in August 2009, the CHF website Tuesday, November 10 20th-annual festival. offers lectures, slideshows, and materials from Prologue: Guerrilla Girls CHF’s 20-year archive. Programs included in the . shed no tears before the rain (Don Byron) CHF creates opportunities for people of all ages Feminist Masked Avengers 2009 festival will become available in the late fall and to support, enjoy, and explore the humanities. The Frailach Jamboree (Mickey Katz) winter. Commentary, including blogs and ongoing Wednesday, November 11 organization accomplishes this by creating annual conversations, are a central feature of the site. Create Marga Gomez Haim Afen Range (adapted from Home on the Range, fall and spring festivals, by presenting programs an account, share a festival itinerary, and join the Long Island Iced Latina traditional) throughout the year that encourage the study and conversation at chicagohumanities.org. enjoyment of the humanities, and by maintaining an Directed by David Schweizer Mamaliege Dance (Nat Farber and Mickey Katz) online home for the humanities community on its Sweet and Gentle (Monterrey Portal and George Saturday, November 14 website. Thorn) Don Byron This year’s festival, titled Laughter, includes more The Music of Mickey Katz Litvak Square Dance (Mickey Katz) than 90 events at 19 venues around Chicago’s Loop Don Byron, clarinet and emcee C’est Si Bon (Jerry Seelen, Henry Betti, and and Hyde Park neighborhoods, and features con- JD Parran, woodwinds Andre Hornez) certs, theater performances, exhibits, discussions, Charles Lewis, trumpet Trombonik Tanz (Nat Farber and Mickey Katz) lectures, and films. For more information and tickets Jacob Garchik, trombone visit chicagohumanities.org or call the box office at Bar Mitzvah Special (Louis Singer and Nat Farber) Todd Reynolds, violin 312.494.9509. Daniel Kelly, piano Dreidel Song (traditional) Join us for Stages, Sights & Sounds, CHF’s Kenny Davis, bass Seder Dance (Mickey Katz, adapted from Sabre Dance Ben Wittman, drums by Khachaturian) nationally-recognized spring festival. Jack Falk, lead vocal Its more performance-based programming appeals with Michael Kozakis, xylophone Paisach in Portugal (adapted from April in Portugal by Raul Ferrao and Jimmy Kennedy) to a wide audience, including children and families. The 11th Stages, Sights & Sounds (formerly known Berele’s Sherele (Benny Gill and Nat Farber) as the Chicago Children’s Humanities Festival) will Kiss of Meyer (adapted from Kiss of Fire by Lester Allan take place in May 2010 at several of Chicago’s favor- and Robert Hill) ite theater venues, including the MCA. Please check the CHF website at chicagohumanities.org for more Wedding Dance (Mickey Katz) information in early 2010. 16 Tons (Ernie Ford) Sunrise, Sunset (Sheldon Harnick) Marga Gomez and Don Byron are presented by the Chicago Humanities Festival in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Guerrilla Girls are presented by the Chicago Humanities Festival in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Ellen Stone Belic; and Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago. Marga Gomez’s Long Island Iced Latina was originally produced by the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre. 2 3 About the artists veiling of anti-film industry billboards in Hollywood timed with the Academy Awards; large-scale projects for the Venice Biennale, Istanbul, and Mexico City; and a non-appearance in 2007 at the Museum of Modern Art-organized symposium Feminist Future: Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts. They have examined the museums of Washington DC in a full- page article in the Washington Post, and exhibited large-scale posters and banners in Athens, Bilbao, Rotterdam, Sarajevo, and Shanghai. From the book Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls Excerpted from an interview by anonymous Q. How did the Guerrilla Girls start? Kathe Kollwitz: In 1985, The Museum of Modern Art in New York opened an exhibition titled An Image © Guerrilla Girls. Courtesy guerrillagirls.com Image © Guerrilla Girls. Courtesy International Survey of Painting and Sculpture. It was Guerrilla Girls supposed to be an up-to-the minute summary of the is a group of anonymous, radical feminist artists ded- most significant contemporary art in the world. Out icated to exposing sexism, racism, and corruption of 169 artists, only 13 were women. All the artists in the art world, film industry, and popular culture. were white, either from Europe or the US. That was Adopting the names of dead female artists like Frida bad enough, but the curator, Kynaston McShine, said Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz, they are best known for any artist who wasn’t in the show should rethink “his” Akram Khan their creative postering campaigns and public ap- career. And that really annoyed a lot of artists be- pearances wearing full jungle drag. cause obviously the guy was completely prejudiced. Women demonstrated in front of the museum with Guerrilla Girls have appeared at more than 90 uni- Company the usual placards and picket line. Some of us who versities and museums, as well as in the New York attended were irritated that we didn’t make any im- bahok Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Bitch, and pression on passersby. Friday–Sunday, February 26–28 Artforum; on National Public Radio, the BBC and Driven by Nitin Sawhney’s pulsating score CBC; and in many art and feminist texts. They have Meta Fuller: We began to ask ourselves some ques- Powerful . Khan captures both the exhilaration authored stickers, billboards, posters and other proj- tions. Why did women and artists of color do better and the desolation of a world on the move. ects, as well as several books including The Guerrilla in the 1970s than in the 1980s? Was there a backlash —the guardian Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art in the art world? Who was responsible? What could and Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla be done about it? For tickets, call 312.397.4010 Girls’ Guide to Female Stereotypes. O;cial Airline of Q. What did you do? the Museum of or visit mcachicago.org. They are part of Amnesty International’s Stop Contemporary Art Frida Kahlo: We decided to find out how bad it was. Violence Against Women Campaign in the United After about five minutes of research we found that bahok is made possible by the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the National Dance Project, a program administered by the New England Foundation Kingdom and are exploring possible activities with for the Arts. Major support for the National Dance Project is also provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from the Ford it was worse than we thought: the most influential Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Greenpeace. Their campaigns have included the un- galleries and museums exhibited almost no women Photo by Hugo Glendinning 5 artists. When we showed the figures around, some proud of having put up broad sheets in bathrooms of Teatro Stagefest, the National Hispanic Cultural said it was an issue of quality, not prejudice. Others major museums. Center in New Mexico, The Marsh in San Francisco, admitted there was discrimination, but considered as well as Princeton University, Central Michigan Rosalba Carriera: We send secret letters to egregious the situation hopeless. Everyone in positions of University, and the College of Staten Island. offenders, often honoring them with bogus awards. power— curators, critics, collectors, the artists We gave John Russell of the New York Times an award Her collaboration with Carmelita Tropicana on Single themselves—passed the buck. The artists blamed for The Most Patronizing Art Review of 1986, when Wet Female has been produced in New York at the the dealers, the dealers blamed the collectors, the he reviewed Dorothy Dehner’s show and called her Public Theater, the 47th Street Theater, Performance collectors blamed the critics, and so on. We decided “Mrs. David Smith,” referring to her famous sculptor Space 122, Dixon Place, and La Mama ETC, and to embarrass each group by showing their records in husband (they had been divorced for years). she has appeared in productions of The Vagina public. Those were the first posters we put up in the Monologues Off Broadway and with national com- streets of SoHo in New York. Q. Have you ever been accused of discrimination panies, working alongside Rita Moreno and Jo Beth Q. Why are you anonymous? yourselves? Williams. Her screen credits include HBO’s Tracy Takes On . , the Warner Brothers’ filmsBatman GG1: The art world is a very small place. Of course, Alma Thomas: Yes. Menopausal women felt we were Forever and Sphere, and the independent filmsRosa we were afraid that if we blew the whistle on some making fun of them by titling our newsletter Hot Negra and The D Word. Gomez was “prisoner num- of its most powerful people, we could kiss off our art Flashes from the Guerrilla Girls. I guess they didn’t ber two” in one episode of the beloved soap opera careers. But mainly, we wanted the focus to be on the know the Girl who named it was having them herself. Guiding Light. issues, not on our personalities or our own work. KK: One male journalist is still threatening to sue us Lee Krasner: We joined a long tradition of (mostly Her television appearances include the LOGO for charging white males a higher subscription rate male) masked avengers like Robin Hood, Batman, Network’s One Night Stand-Up, HBO’s Comic Relief, to Hot Flashes than women or artists of color.